Schedule

An extensive ethnographic study on the crisis management mission in Kosovo was conducted during the autumn 2001. In this study, the project found that the most common services that the crisis management organisations felt should be integrated into the system were: support for decision-making, support for group communications, e-mail, situational display services (Common Operational Picture) and support for knowledge management and organisational memory. Based on the findings of the research, an initial system design and functional specification was developed.

The ITCM system development was started in January 2002. Services were designed to form an integrated C4I system that should be easy to integrate, based on commonly and commercially available software products, be based on open standards, be accessed through a web browser and be easily deployed to crisis management organisations.

After this planning and designing process, the project started the actual system integration and implementation phase in January 2002 and the current status is as follows:

Phase 1: Decision-making support system: status ready

Phase 2: E-mail and asynchronous communication methods: status ready

Phase 3: Group communications support system: status ready

Phase 4: Common operational picture service: in process

Phase 5: Knowledge management: in process

Phase 6: Information security: in process

The project is on time and the ITCM system will be tested in the Nordic Peace 2003 PfP exercise in Niinisalo, Finland in September 2003. The objective is to have full delivery capability for system, support services, and customer organisation in place during 2004.